Respecting God's Creation: The Pope Wears Ermine

Not only does he wear Prada shoes, but he's the first Pope since Pope John XXIII in the 1960s to wear the camauro, an ermine-trimmed red velvet hat. He's also been wearing a cape trimmed with ermine.

TheGuardian reports: "But his use of ermine, long favoured by kings, judges and nobles, has drawn the ire of the Italian Association for the Defence of Animals and the Environment, which had by yesterday gathered 2,260 signatures for its petition. "The pope has often talked about protecting the environment and we are asking that he acknowledges that animals, as God's creation, also deserve respect," said the organisation's head, Lorenzo Croce. Benedict's use of fur was defended yesterday by Cardinal Andrea Cordero Lanza di Montezemolo. 'Aren't there more important battles to wage?' he asked. 'There are human beings who merit more urgent assistance that no one is taking care of. And if we eat animals, we can wear them.'"

The paper notes that before he became Pope, Benedict said "Animals too are God's creatures...creatures we must respect as companions in creation and as important elements in creation."

Comments

Do people eat ermine? I really don't know. Is that part of a special pope diet or something? Class suppression, modern mysticism, and all-around-evil-doing with a side of ermine.

Posted by: RP | Aug 15, 2008 12:47:56 PM

The popes get gayer and gayer, don't they?

I am always shocked at how Catholics give their hard earned money to support the luxury lifestyle of a man who wears expensive gowns and jewelry, while so many churches (also paid for with their money) are shut down for not being profitable enough any more.

The red looks good on him. Well, not good so much as appropriate.

Posted by: paul | Aug 15, 2008 12:50:23 PM

Gay.

Posted by: John | Aug 15, 2008 12:51:01 PM

I'm always very wary of the "aren't there more important issues out there" argument, particularly from an organization that has a pretty bad track record on those other issues. The Catholic Church hasn't done so well on championing the cause of the downtrodden lately.

I wish the church got PR. Actually, no, I don't. I got out of that hell hole years ago!

There are worse problems? Don't they see that it's tough to be advocating for those worse problem, when they have so many problems of their own? It's tough to be credible on other issues when you ignore the litte things. Hence, the PR.

The Pope, if he were smart, would live a vow of poverty and then get back to the supposed central mission of the Catholic Church... advocating for the poor.

I'm not going to defend the slaughter of animals for the sole purpose of decorating clothing for people. And I wholeheartedly agree with Jonathan that the "other better things" defense is lame.

As a practicing Catholic who is painfully aware of all its shortfallings and sins, I personally believe it would be appropriate if the church did away with much of the trappings of the historical "political papacy." I've thought it would be a nice gesture for the Pope to don sackcloth and ashes to symbolically atone for the church's abuses, including in his lifetime, indeed during his ascendency in the church hierarchy.

But you know, silly stories like this seem inevitably to lead to gross comments, e.g., on this very thread about how much easier the design of the pope's clothing must make it for him to fuck children, and to a generalized bashing of the entire church. It's a church which comprises in some fashion or other more than a billion people worldwide, including the pope and cardinals and bishops but also parish-level clergy and lay people. That bashing is fast becoming a very distasteful form of latter-day acceptable bigotry against all those people.

The church is an enormously complex, global institution. And it remains a force for much that is bad in the world, including homophobia, discrimination against women, the continued lunatic opposition to birth control, to name just a few. But the church is, in that self-same complexity, also a force for great good in the world as well.

And millions and millions of people like me, who consider ourselves Catholic, see it as central to our daily, struggling, but doggedly continuing efforts to be better people.

Some of the finest people I have known--including priests, nuns and lay people--have been motivated to their goodness and good works by their Catholic faith. For instance, two summers ago in El Salvador while doing some volunteer work, I met a 77-year old Irish nun who is the only health care worker for a nearly 500 square mile remote rural area. When her horse went lame, she was making her rounds on foot.

The blanket condemnations of this man and the global church he leads strike me as simplistic and ignorant of all of those other millions of people.

And just for the record, the claim that the Pope's shoes are made by Prada have been frequently repudiated and never supported by any evidence to that effect.

Posted by: Hermes in DC | Aug 15, 2008 1:44:07 PM

Just like the Manhunt guy supporting the Republicans, I will never understand why so many gay men continue to wage a quixotic battle for acceptance within a deeply dysfunctional organization that for decades (if not centuries) has demonstrated that they have nothing to offer us but hatred, violence, disenfranchisement, marginalization, lies, and disappointment.

If you get a large enough group of people together, there are bound to be a few aweseome ones in the bunch. But as an organization, the Catholic church has a long history of being fundamentally and dangerously fucked up.

i have always LOATHED this pope even while he was still known as cardinal ratzinger and chaired the congregation for the doctrine of the faith, in the middle ages a.k.a., THE INQUISITION!!!

Posted by: bading | Aug 15, 2008 2:03:25 PM

1- nobody eats ermine

2- the money spent on the ermine in the first place let alone for cleaning could go to "more important battles to wage?"

Hermes in DC

There was some nice people in the nazi movment to. I bet a few nazi grandmas baked cookies and knitted sweaters for their nazi ss trooper grandchildren while telling them what a wonderful job they were doing killing the Jews, gypsies, and gays

Your nun healthcare worker still supports and upholds an institution that has murdered millions of people throught the ages, that perpetuates fairytales, that condems gays, etc

Posted by: Jimmyboyo | Aug 15, 2008 2:18:36 PM

The pope is so 80's.

He's over and unimportant. And so is the role.

If I wanna talk to god, I don't need to use a go-between to get her attention.

Suck it, pope-man.

Posted by: johnny | Aug 15, 2008 2:28:11 PM

Ha! Talk about being holier than thou! This type of moral posturing is laughable.

I`m not sure if I miss the meaning of these comments, but your next paragraph, Paul, seems to suggest to me that you associate greedily spending money on expensive, tacky or ridiculous clothes, without regard to animal suffering or the poor`s needs, with the values of gay people. It kind of makes me cringe when people devalue the word ``gay`` that way.
I`d love to see the day that teens say ``You look really gay`` to tell a friend they`ve got a good style (and the response being ``thanks``}, instead of meaning they look ridiculous or stupid, tacky, lame, or vain.

Posted by: GregV | Aug 15, 2008 3:40:17 PM

GREGV, I mostly agree with your comment, but unfortunately, gays often look tacky(especially from the 70's), so there is some truth to the stereotype.

Posted by: nikko | Aug 15, 2008 4:15:33 PM

GREGV: You obviously have not eaten in a Florida restaurant where the straights are all dressed in 70's polyester. lol

Posted by: chuck | Aug 15, 2008 4:51:04 PM

Sorry. That post was meant for NIKKO, not GREGV.

Posted by: Chuck | Aug 15, 2008 4:53:30 PM

Outlandish clothes worn by those elevated to higher positions within the CC border on blasphemy. Christ and the apostles didn't wear ermine and a visit to the Vatican Treasury will shatter your vision of the CC as a loving body concerned with, not only the spiritual, but also the material needs of its members. Then there's the Popemobile, limousines, Castel Gondolpho, etc. he is not exactly living the life of a a pauper, is he? How can he and the CC hierarchy sleep nights knowing that the enormous financial reserves are paying off sexual abuse cases and not putting food in hungry stomachs? To answer one question, the ermine is a weasel with its winter coat!

Posted by: Ronald Cote | Aug 15, 2008 5:34:43 PM

THE POPE CAN SUCK IT!~ period...these "Religious Mafia" is old and useless....tell me whats their reason for living?? well I tell you Money, Boys, and more greed and sexual perversion....but then again how can u blame the pope, after all the parents allow their children to get rape, sexually abuse by these people in power...so shame on them.

Posted by: Bosie | Aug 15, 2008 5:51:31 PM

GREGV, I was referring to a man who wears Prada shoes, furs, gowns, jewels and doesn't have sex with women. He's basically Liberace without the musical talent.

I didn't mention animals suffering and my refernce to the corruption of taking people's money and closing their churches was a statement on the church system as a whole, not something the pope goes out and does personally.